


Traum(a)

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Blacksand - Freeform, M/M, QUICKSAND, poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Traum: German word for dream</p>
<p>Trauma: from the Greek, meaning: a wound. In German and English, "a psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is repressed and remains unhealed" (OED).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traum(a)

Traum(a)

 

I.

_“It may happen that someone gets away, apparently unharmed, from the spot where he has suffered a shocking accident”_

It is after wounding Clorinda for the second time that Tancred hears his lover’s voice once more.

But he is not Clorinda, and this wound will not make him speak.

What could he say that the other (capitalize the O if you like) would wish to hear?

He closes his eyes.

Later, he opens his eyes.

He is precisely the same as he was.

Or he will appear so

Until he sleeps,

And the one-letter difference in one language

Asserts its meaning like an unsheathed claw.

Which, if he were weaker

He would consider

A compelling argument for reconciliation.

 

II.

“The traumatic histories of the two lovers can emerge…only in their relation to each other and only in the way in which this relation creates, precisely, a break within the mutual understanding of their address.”

Long ago, they talked.

They talked, and everything was well.

They had other ways, too, of showing what they meant, which he has not yet managed to forget.

He has forgotten why the other (capitalize the O if you please) stopped talking.

Perhaps it was the overwhelming realization that producing those piles and piles of sound

Had no inherent meaning.

A realization he reached long before any human wrote it down:

That vibrations of the breath do not signify,

That noise from the throat was a mask hiding no face,

Ultimately useless and unsuitable for truth.

(Evenespecially the truths of love

and hate

and how many centuries it takes

for the two to become one

struggling and gasping.)

If that is the reason or if it is not

He remains silent.

And he still talks.

And he leaves.

And of all the things he dreams of (when he can)

Foremost is

The dream of a common language

With which to

Apologize.

**Author's Note:**

> First quote is a translation from Freud's Moses and Monotheism as found in Cathy Caruth's Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History.
> 
> Second quote is from Cathy Caruth's Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History.


End file.
